Category Archives: Grammar Excellence

I have never diagrammed a sentence in my life. I was never taught this in school. People often ask me how I gained my knowledge of grammar, and the answer is just that I’ve been an avid reader my whole life. It’s hard not to learn sentence structure when you’re constantly reading.

I was, however, quite amused to find a diagrammed sentence spoken by our President at his first official press conference.

Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein asked President Obama (PRESIDENT OBAMA! PRESIDENT OBAMA! IT STILL THRILLS ME TO HEAR OR READ THAT!) whether he would consider investigating members of the Bush Administration, up to and including Bush himself.

The President’s response:

“My view is also that nobody’s above the law, and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.”

First, the elegant balance of the central construction (My view is that x, and that y, but also that z) shows that Obama has a good memory for where he’s been, grammatically, and a strong sense of where he’s going. His tripartite analysis of the problem is clearly reflected in the structure of the sentence, and thus in the three main branches of the diagram. (Turn it on its side and it could be a mobile.) The third “that” – thrown in 29 words into a 43-word sentence – creates three parallel predicate nouns. And then there’s a little parallel flourish at the end: “I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back.”

Earlier in this blog’s history, I talked about Bill Cosby’s latest book, Come On People. (I discussed it here and later here.)

Oh, Bill. Oh, publishing company. Without the comma, there’s suddenly a LOT of innuendo in this title. (The cover art doesn’t help, either.)

Well, I was perusing the books at Borders the other day and saw the latest edition of the book:

They actually added the comma!

THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!! It’s so rare that you actually see a company changing its grammar after customer complaints! (Believe me, there were a lot of complaints. This book got a lot of press for its missing comma in the title.)

I have to give a shout-out to the book’s publisher, Thomas Nelson. Well done, Tommy boy. Very well done.

Derbyshire police officers have become the first in Britain to get a new educational booklet, which includes tips on how to spell.

Superintendent Gary Knighton has distributed the Fast Facts for Policing booklet to all 1,800 officers in the county.

It contains multiplication tables and the correct spellings of the days of the week and months of the year.

The differences between source and sauce, whether and weather and two and too are explained. And officers are advised on how to use the 24-hour clock.

Supt Knighton said: “Spellings and terminology are very important in our line of work and accuracy is key when producing official documents. We’re pleased to be the first force to offer people the opportunity to improve their skills in this way and we hope other constabularies will consider distributing the Fast Facts booklet.”

Multiplication tables? Really?

It sounds a bit ridiculous when you picture cops running down the street, fighting crime while referring to their little books. (It reminds me of this hilarious Conan O’Brien sketch. “Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich! Nooooooooo!”)

Sometimes you have to start with the very basics, the very minimums that help you avoid embarrassment.

Also, keep in mind that if a cop spells a month incorrectly on a speeding ticket, you could probably contest it.

I try to keep the political blogging restricted to Kate’s Adventures, but this made me so excited, I just had to share it.

First I came across this piece written by Bil Browning on the Bilerico Project, which says that Barack Obama will be announcing Indiana Senator (and former governor) Evan Bayh as his running mate on Wednesday. That, by itself alone, made me squeal with excitement. I am crazy about this election! (And I LOVE that Barack is celebrating his birthday in my beloved Boston tonight!)

And then it got even better. Watch the last sentence in this speech by Evan Bayh:

Together, we can build an America of which we can be proud.

Not an America we can be proud of.

I knew that Bayh was one of the top contenders, but he wasn’t my first choice of a running mate. Watching him say that beautiful sentence made me grin. It’s going to be good.

My power cord died last week and it has been hellish trying to do anything on my computer with a universal cord (it once took me five minutes to type out a one-paragraph message on Facebook!). I ordered a new one.

And this is what Dell had to say:

Not totally egregious…

Not the worst thing I’ve seen in the last few days…

But…it wouldn’t kill Dell to invest in a big of punctuation.

Also, I headed to Whole Foods after work yesterday (I absolutely LOVE that it’s so easy that Whole Foods in Charles River Plaza is a short walk from my new office and right on the way home!), not expecting anything but a few bagfuls of organic fruit and some of that FANTASTIC fresh mozzarella that they have on display in the produce section.

And there came the grammar.

I saw a sign near the register that mentioned how Whole Foods does work EACH DAY to help people living with HIV/AIDS. The sign, however, said EVERY DAY.

I was so surprised and happy. It seems like everyone just says EVERYDAY lately. It’s gotten to the point that when I see EVERY DAY instead of EVERYDAY, when meaning EACH DAY, I become giddy.

That shouldn’t happen! I shouldn’t be expecting the worst!!

It was correct. After all, it was Whole Foods. This is the grocery store featuring more expensive and healthful food, and therefore likely attracts a highly educated clientele.

It made me happy.

And then I saw the sign on the back of the register, facing the customer:

MAY WE VALIDATE YOUR PARKING TICKET

No question mark.

Aw, and to think it was so good…

I would love to see a business free of grammatical errors. It would be even better if it were a chain. And who knows? Maybe that’s one of Whole Foods’s goals. These signs were handmade and exclusive to the Charles River Plaza store.

I know I’ve been a bit heavy on T-shirt postings these days, but this latest T-shirt deserves attention. As soon as I fully understood what it meant, I felt the urge to buy it, just for its grammatical correctness!

At first, I thought it said, “We’re #1.” That would make it a nice antiquated T-shirt, reminiscent of the past. But then I realized that I had read the words too quickly, and hadn’t noticed that there was no apostrophe.

The shirt is meant to read, “Were #1,” as in “Used to be #1.”

For that reason, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS T-SHIRT.

Some of you know that I am a huge geography nerd in addition to being a grammar nerd. In fact, I’m much more of a geography-phile than a grammar-phile.

Because of my geographic knowledge, I am particularly THRILLED that this shirt includes Northern Ireland in order to form the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom consists of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; Britain consists of everything but Northern Ireland.